A friend of mine who is the mother of six-year-old twins shared a lovely story about one of her daughters. Her daughter’s first-grade class had a lesson about pollution, and her daughter wrote a few sentences about how she felt so sorry that fish have to swim in dirty water. Her daughter’s teacher told my friend that she has never encountered such an empathic response from such a young child. Having been raised in such close proximity—emotionally and physically—to their […]

The title of this blog post is the Spanish equivalent of nature versus nurture. I recently attended a virtual presentation hosted by LAISPS (Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies) that featured speakers discussing their perspectives on twin development. I feel that most professionals accept the mutual confluence of genetic and environmental factors in the formation of personality and psychological well-being. While I am interested in heritability statistics because they provide a generalized overview, my professional expertise focuses on […]

Why do some twin pairs find it so difficult to collaborate? Conventional wisdom suggests that their extraordinary bond would ensure exquisite attunement to one another. Yet, in my work with adult twins, I have encountered situations that demonstrate that this expectation of cohesion does not always materialize. Often, fierce tension emerges instead. This comes as a shock to both siblings, who previously believed that their partnership was inviolable. The story of a pair of identical twin men, who are now […]

As so many of us discover after a number of years of marriage, the exact qualities that attracted us to our beloved turn out to be personality traits that may contribute to our feeling unhappy, lonely, or sad later on in the relationship. This predicament can become especially intolerable if you have a twin who gets you, has your back, demonstrates unconditional love and acceptance, and needs to hear no more than a few words drop from your lips to […]

In my work with adult twins, I often notice a tendency to manage conflict by engaging a third party. For example, an adult man channels his contempt for his brother by communicating this feeling to his twin’s wife. He seems not to understand that this puts his sister-in-law in a bind. Should she be loyal to her husband or to her brother-in-law? Another young identical twin man introduces a female friend to his brother. Unbeknownst to him, the brother develops […]